Asphalt-surfaced roadways are built to facilitate vehicular travel. Depending upon usage density, base conditions, temperature variation, moisture variation, and/or physical age, the surface of the roadways eventually become misshapen, non-planar, unable to support wheel loads, or otherwise unsuitable for vehicular traffic. In order to rehabilitate the roadways for continued vehicular use, spent asphalt is removed in preparation for resurfacing.
Cold planers, sometimes also called road mills or scarifiers, are machines that typically include a frame propelled by tracked drive units. The frame supports an engine, an operator's station, and a milling drum. The milling drum, fitted with cutting tools, is rotated through a suitable interface by the engine to break up the surface of the roadway. The broken up roadway material is deposited by the milling drum onto a lower or primary conveyor for removal from the underside of the machine. The material is then transferred from the primary conveyor onto an upper or secondary conveyor, which transports the material away from the machine and over a nearby haul truck. The material travels up the secondary conveyor and falls off the end into the haul truck for transportation away from the jobsite.
An exemplary cold planar having the above-described conveyor system is disclosed in U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2014/0084665 of Motz et al. In the conveyor system of the '665 publication, the milled material is transferred from the primary to the secondary conveyor free from obstructions without deflection by a material deflection device. While effective in some applications, the conveyor system of the '665 publication may be problematic in other applications. Specifically, there may be situations where the operator desires to transfer the milled material from the primary conveyor to a predetermined region of the secondary conveyor repeatably while minimizing spillage over the sides of the conveyor. The material deflector of the current disclosure may solve one or more of the problems set forth above and/or other problems in the art. The scope of the current disclosure, however, is defined by the attached claims, and not by the ability to solve any specific problem.